Regardless, interest is high and voices are buzzing around the league.
The Geoghegan Round should be a spectacle of spectacles, particularly within the Frick League, which is really the only group anyone (even Kevin Chmura’s wife, am I right?) cares about. It adds up to say there’s more social focus on this set of series than any time since the invention of the telephoto lens.
To understand why, let’s jump into things.
TWIN CITIES vs. OMAHA
This may be the perfect post-season pairing. Like Greta Garbo and Monroe, Dietrich and DiMaggio. Like Rita Hayworth gave good face. Or something like that. Maybe we should keep dating ourselves, though, and suggest the buzz is more Mary-Kate and Ashley, because both teams bring twin 95-win seasons to the dance. Of interest is that the Cyclones took 8 of their 14 games, which makes them the Mary-Kate. Or is that the Ashley?Whatever.
Under the hood these are two very different teams. Where the Omaha club is a high-powered offense (proving forever that batting average is for wimps), the club from Minnesota gets by on balance of all things and the poetry of pitching and glovework.
The Cyclone staff depends mostly on its rotation going deeply into games, but that rotation is a little out of sorts now, with the upper half fatigued from late-season outings. We’re guessing Arturo Meza will start Game 1. He’s very good. The offense is led by the veteran presences of Orlando Ordonez and Luis Mendoza. The three hit 99 homers between them. One more and everyone would have gotten a steak knife and a trip to Richard’s Steak House, where, if you eat the whole 30 oz. Porterhouse in 60 minutes you can get your VR image left in Fifth City when you die. Andre Ly, Sloth Fratelli, and Pedro Gongora are all capable of late-inning heroics, too. Left fielder Du Wu has been effective at times, though perhaps a bit of a disappointment after that massive 50 homer, 7 WAR season last year. This is the big stage, though, and in five games nothing is surprising except for everything. He could wind up the MVP, right?
In Twin Cities, the offense is all about a somewhat declining, but still proud David Simpson.
Don’t get me wrong.
The River Monsters have a deep array of hitters who can make things happen behind, Simpson. In fact, other than perhaps the catching combo of Andy Elmer and Octavio Moreno, the lineup really does not have a hole. And that kind of persistent capability has a tendency to ear out a pitcher quickly. No time to rest. But Simpson is like the majestic Redwood in the midst of a forest of Oak. At 38, some are saying this could be his last real go-around. He’s losing a hundredth of a second on that beautiful swing of his. His presence in the field is becoming a little … well … let’s say he doesn’t run like he used to, and leave it at that.
No one is saying the guy is going to retire, but the days of 4 and 5 WAR campaigns are likely soon to be behind him.
Also in the River Monster camp is that the pitching staff is both good, and moderately rested, and that the Twin City bullpen seems on paper to be considerably more reliable than Omaha’s.
So, there we have it. A study in similarities. A study in differences.
Who will win?
Well, isn’t that a bit like asking which Olsen sister is the most successful?
If forced, I go Omaha in five, but mostly because they get the home field advantage … and a set of Steak knives could still be had by all.
HAWAII vs. NASHVILLE
We get it. Really, we do. There is no world in which a city like Nashville should ever host a postseason game. The streets are littered with old Nutter Butter packages and the strains of pre-packaged Country Rap that they play in all the Mall restaurants are just embarrassing. Seriously? Rhyming Cow Patty in a string with Barney Lindsay is just better left undone.That’s what we think, anyway.
And yet, the BBA powers that be have decreed that not only will post-season games be allowed to happen in the city, the Bluebirds will continue to be given home-field advantage—even if all their wins came due to paying off the umpires and poisoning the visitor’s dugouts by posting life-sized VR motion posters in the visitor’s clubhouse of GM Chad Nason doing beer bongs. Some teams will do anything to win. Why the commissioner’s office chooses to allow this stuff is beyond us. I mean, could you do your job if you had to watch Chad Nason in action for a half hour before going to your desk? I think not. I think, instead, there would be bubonic plague running rampant in your workforce. Salmonella-like symptoms.
Wind-aided or not (see what I did there? Subtle, right?) the Bluebirds have some players, and a lot of them are pretty good. The offense and defense are both upper quartile in the Frick, and the addition of defensive-minded centerfielder Frederick Brisset helped fix a hole in the outfield that probably did need some fixing. (Now if someone could just do something about the hole where the rain gets in to stop Nason’s head from wandering, we’de be getting somewhere … calling in the Beatles … get right on that).
Offensively, the team is a strange mix of youth and age. Juan Rivera (38) and Felipe Vega (36) did 69 homers and 8 WAR between them, but Brooks Eliot and Majid bin Nawaf (both 22) did 7.2 WAR, though with only half the power. So, this seems to be the apex year, right? One assumes time will catch up to the aged ones (and with a team option, there’s a chance Vega may not be a Bluebird this time next year). It gives the feeling of time pressure, anyway.
On the other side of the field, you’ve got the Tropics from Hawaii, a club that has got to have been having GM James Walker literally pulling his hair out. In July, the Tropics were flying high, hitting the afterburners, and preparing to overtake Sacramento at the top of the Pacific Division table. Life was good. Cigars and brandy were flowing in the Tropic executive suites. Then one day—let’s call it July 29—the world went haywire. From that day until September 4th, the team went (and I kid you not) 9-25. To put that in context, that’s .264 baseball, or 42 wins. Not quite Cleveland Spider territory, but definitely in the area code of the 1962 New York Mets. Only a blistering 14-5 recovery let them make it past Vancouver and into the post-season.
So.
Yeah.
What do we make of it? Do the Tropics stand a chance?
Are they the team that only Charlie Brown lovers can watch, or did Roy Hobbs really find his swing in September, and will it carry on into October? And beyond that, will the dark sunglasses the team gave out to combat those life-sized posters Nason do the trick?
It’s an interesting question because at the end of the day, and smoothing out the curve, there’s really nothing the Tropics can’t do. Despite that trip to La La Land, they sit in the upper third of the ranks for most categories. Their rotation is not for the faint of heart, but their bullpen is deep and rested. Offensively neither of the catchers can hit, but everyone else can and does. I mean, if an announcer closes his eyes and says “Joe Hawaii is a 3 WAR player” for anyone who comes to the plate, he’ll be within a WAR of being right. It is a really nice-looking offense.
At the end of the day, I’m sure a lot of pundits will go Nashville on this one, and with the Jekyll and Hyde question looming, I get it.
But my Brewster bucks are on Roy Hobbs rising again, and the Tropics to advance.
Four games this time.
